Political Contestation in Algeria: Between Postcolonial Legacies and the Arab Spring

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

¹ F. Fanon (2004) The Wretched of the Earth, R. Philcox (trans.) (New York: Grove Press), p. 6.

² See Bouteflika's speech in Sétif on May 8, 2012. The text can be found at http://www.algerie-focus.com/blog/2012/05/08/discours-integral-de-bouteflika-a-setif/, accessed July 5, 2013.

³ For example, see Le Nouvel Observateur, L'Algérie: Une indépendqnce confisquée, March 19, 2012. Available at http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/les-50-ans-de-la-fin-de-la-guerre-d-algerie/20120319.OBS4062/algerie-le-sentiment-d-une-independance-confisquee.html, accessed July 5, 2013.

⁴ While we are attentive to the pitfalls of romanticizing the Arab Spring, it seems safe to say that a series of possibilities have emerged that were generally believed to be foreclosed due to an ‘authoritarian syndrome.’ See M. Camau & V. Geisser (2003) Le Syndrome autoritaire, politique en Tunisie de Bourguiba à Ben Ali (Paris: Presses de Science Po).

⁵ See, for example, Vote Confirms Algeria as Arab Spring Exception: Analysts, Al Arabiya News, May 12, 2012. Available at http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/05/12/213647.html, accessed July 5, 2013.

⁶ Hogra, a word often used in Algerian Arabic, is used to indicate contempt, injustice, and a denial of the basic rights to live with dignity.

⁷ See Ennahar, Plusieurs pays saluent le déroulement ‘honnête’ et ‘transparent’ du scrutin, May 13, 2012. Available at http://www.ennaharonline.com/fr/news/11657.html, accessed July 5, 2013.

⁸ El Watan, July 5, 2012.

⁹ See H. Dabashi (2012) The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (New York: Zed Books).

¹⁰ A. Mbembe (2006) Qu'est-ce que la pensée postcoloniale?, Esprit, December.

¹¹ Boumediene was the Chairman of the Revolutionary Council from June 19, 1965 until December 27, 1976, and then served as Algeria's second President until his death in December 1978. His economic policy was marked by state planning and industrialization, most famously nationalizing Algeria's oil industry in 1971.

¹² K. Farsoun (1975) State Capitalism in Algeria. MERIP reports, 35, February.

¹³ S. Chikki (1995) Question ouvrière et rapports sociaux en Algérie, Fernand Braudel Center Review, 18(3), pp. 487–524.

¹⁴ Ibid., p. 85.

¹⁵ S. Chikki (2001) Algérie: du soulèvement populaire d'octobre 1988 aux contestations sociales des travailleurs, in: D. Djerbal & M. Benguerma (eds) Mouvement social et modernité, pp. 69–103 (Alger: Naqd/SARP).

¹⁶ A. Insel (2008) ‘Cet Etat n'est pas sans propriétaires!’ Forces prétoriennes et autoritarismes en Turquie, in: O. Dabène, V. Geisser & G. Massardier (eds) Autoritarismes démocratiques et démocraties autoritaires au XXIè siècle, pp. 69–103 (Paris: Editions La Découverte).

¹⁷ L. Martinez (1998) La guerre civile en Algérie (Paris: Khartala).

¹⁸ A. Mbembe (2001) On the Postcolony (Berkeley: University of Berkeley Press), p. 15.

¹⁹ F. Coronil (1997) The Magical State. Nature, Money and Modernity in Venezuela (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press), p. 394.

²⁰ One can also see this in the speculations and rumors that associated the death of Boumediene who had spent 39 days in a coma before dying of a rare blood disease, during which it was unclear to many whether he was alive or dead. Rumors of a possible assassination or poisoning also circulated in Algeria after his death. There are also similarities to be drawn with the constant speculation regarding the health of Hosni Mubarak.

²¹ P. Bourdieu & L. Wacquant (1992) Réponses. Pour une anthropologie reflexive (Paris: Éditions du Seuil), p. 73. All translation by the authors unless otherwise indicated.

²² P. Bourdieu (2012) Sur l'Etat. Cours au Collège de France, 1989–1992 (Paris: Raisons d'agir, éditions du Seuil), p. 41.

²³ M. Camau (2006) Globalisation démocratique et exception autoritaire arabe, Critique internationale, 30(January–March) (b), p. 77.

²⁴ M. Foucault (2001) Dits et écrits, Volume II, 1976–1988 (Paris: Gallimard), p. 302.

²⁵ G. Massardier (2008) Les espaces non pluralistes dans les démocraties contemporaines, in: Dabène, Geisser & Massardier (eds), Autoritarismes démocratiques, p. 52.

²⁶ Slate Afrique (2012) En Algérie, impossible de savoir qui gouverne, October 4. Available at http://www.slateafrique.com/95575/qui-gouverne-en-algerie, accessed July 5, 2013.

²⁷ For the amusing and politically charged cartoons of Dilem, see his work in Liberté at http://www.liberte-algerie.com/dilem/galerie, accessed July 5, 2013.

²⁸ France Info (2012) Législatives en Algérie: 57,1% d'abstention, May 10. Available at http://www.franceinfo.fr/politique/legislatives-en-algerie-57-1-d-abstention-611869-2012-05-11, accessed July 5, 2013.

²⁹ N. Poulantzas (1975) La crise des dictatures (Paris: François Maspero), pp. 128–129.

³¹ Ibid.

³⁰ H. Arendt (1969) A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence, The New York Review of Books. Available at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1969/feb/27/a-special-supplement-reflections-on-violence/?pagination = false.

³² C. Bennadji (2011) Algérie 2010: L'année des mille et unes émeutes, L'Année du Maghreb, 7.

³³ Mbembe (2001), 16.

³⁴ See T. Serres (2012) The Malian Crisis Seen From Algeria, Jadaliyya, April 19, 2012.

³⁵ G. Deleuze & F. Guattari (1972) Mille Plateaux. Capitalisme et Schyzophrénie 2 (Paris: éditions de minuit).

³⁶ P. Silverstein (2002) An Excess of Truth: Violence, Conspiracy Theorizing and the Algerian Civil War, Anthropological Quarterly, 75(4), p. 652.

³⁷ A. Brahimi (2000) Aux origines de la tragédie algérienne (1958–2000) (London: Hoggar & The Centre for Maghreb Studies).

³⁸ Silverstein, Excess of Truth, p. 648.

³⁹ The term Harkis generally refers to the Muslim Algerians who fought for the French during the war of independence and are subsequently often viewed as traitors. Those individuals or groups who have accepted to join the governing coalition are often characterized as ‘harkis of the system.’ See, for example, the comments of the Secretary General of the Front des Forces Socialistes (FFS), Ali Laskri, at the meeting for the Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie (RCD), Lematindz.net, March 4, 2012.

⁴⁰ M. H. Davis (2011) Algeria and the Arab Spring: a View from the Forest, Al-Jazeera, September 27.

⁴¹ C. Tilly (1986) La France conteste de 1600 à nos jours (Paris: Fayard).

⁴² M. Harbi (1998) Les archives de la révolution algérienne (Paris: Éditions Jeune Afrique), p. 290.

⁴³ Mbembe, On the Postcolony, p. 181.

⁴⁴ S. Amallou (2012) Algérie, terre de colère et de protesta: un quota de 16 manifestations par jour, DNA.com, October 5.

⁴⁵ Fanon, 2004 (1961), p. 228.

⁴⁶ See P. Lorcin (1995) Imperial Identities (New York: St Martin's Press).

⁴⁷ As Fanny Colonna has written, ‘There thus exists nothing, or very little, to compare with the “first phase” of South Asian Subaltern Studies, that concerned with peasant insurgencies etc. … Very quickly, in fact, research agendas were set in the realm of culture.’ See F. Colonna (2003) The Nation's ‘Unknowing Other:’ Three Intellectuals and the Culture(s) of Being Algerian, or the Impossibility of Subaltern Studies in Algeria, in: J. McDougal (ed.) Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa, pp. 00–01 (London: Frank Cass).

⁴⁸ G. Pervillé (1975) Qu'est-ce que la colonisation? Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, XXII, pp. 321–368, p. 323.

⁴⁹ G. Spivak (1999) A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), p. 1.

⁵⁰ See Dabashi, Arab Spring.

⁵¹ H. Agha & R. Malley (2012) This is not a Révolution, New York Review of Books, 59(17), November 8.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 1275–1276.

⁵² D. T. Goldberg (2009), Racial Comparisons, Relational Racisms: Some Thoughts on Method, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32(7), pp. 1271–1282.

⁵⁴ P. Droz-Vincent (2004) Quel avenir pour l'autoritarisme dans le monde arabe ?, Revue Française de science politique, 54(3), p. 963.

⁵⁵ P. Bourdieu (1977) Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 164.